1. The capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance ; a position or from which something is considered or evaluated (Merriam Webster)
2. The position or vantage point from which the events of a story seem to be observed and presented to us.
Point of view or perspective guides the reader to the story, as it is the method of narration that determines the position from which the story unfolds.
A piece of literature requires a speaker who is speaking either in the first person, telling things from his or her own perspective, or in the third person, telling things from the perspective of an onlooker.
The perspective used is called the Point of View, and is referred to either as first person or third person. If the speaker knows everything including the actions, motives, and thoughts of all the characters, the speaker is referred to as omniscient (all‑knowing). An omniscient narrator knows everything that needs to be known about the agents and events in the story, and is free to move at will in time and place, The narrator has privileged access to a character's thoughts, feelings, and motives. If the speaker is unable to know what is in any character's mind but his or her own, and confined to what is experienced or thought by a single character, this is called limited omniscience.
Role and Importance of Perspective/POV:
Each character's perspective of events in a story will vary, and each different view will impact a reader's view of meaning differently. The events that occur may be different, as the character may see one thing, but another character may see the same thing differently. The protagonist of the story will also change. As other characters develop and are characterized depending on the perspective or point of view that is used to tell the story, perspective can affect characters' development.
Perspective can also enhance the theme of the literature, an example would be The Stranger, where Albert Camus uses the character Meursault, who reflects Camus' philosophical views such as absurdity, alienation and death. By using this character, Meursault's thoughts and views on the world greatly enhances the theme.
Examples:
The Stranger - Albert Camus (Also known as The Outsider)
In this novel, Camus uses first person perspective to tell the story. The audience watches the story and events unfold through Meursault's perspective.Camus examines the theme of "the absurd" * which is recurrent throughout his works through the eyes of the main character, Meursault. The realization that Meursault achieves in accepting the "benign indifference of the world" (117) underscores Camus' existentialistic view. As the story is narrated in first person, the audience is able to access Meursault's thoughts and see things through his eyes. Other characters and settings are defined by Meursault and the way he sees them.
Meursault's characterization of an Arab: "He was alone. He was lying on his back, with his hands behind his head, his forehead in the shade of the rock and his whole body in the sun. His boiler suit was steaming in the heat" (58).
Meursault's description of a setting (Marengo's old people's home): "Above the hills which seperate Marengo from the sea, the sky was full of red streaks. And the breeze coming up over the hills had a salty tang to it" (17).
In The Stranger, the emotions and thoughts of Meursault are revealed to the audience as the narrator is Meursault himself.
"All I could feel were the cymbals the sun was clashing against my forehead and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear still leaping up off the knife in front of me" (60)
* The Absurd: expresses a fundamental disharmony, a tragic incompatibility, in our existence. Camus argues that the absurd is the product of a collision or confrontation between our human desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life and the blank, indifferent “silence of the universe.”
Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Similar to The Stranger, Chronicle of a Death Foretold is written in first person. (Use of the word "I"):
" She saw him from the same hammock and in the same position in which I found her prostrated by the last lights of old age when I returned to this forgotten village, trying to put the broken mirror of memory back toether from so many scattered shards" (4-5).
Even though the novel is coming from a first person perspective, the protagonist of the story is not the narrator, but in fact Santiago Nasar. Even though the story is written from a single character's perspective, the person who is narrating does not play a significant role in the story. The narrator in Chronicle pieces memories and recollections of other characters, thus in some way the story is also told from multiple perspectives.
The point of view is also a limited omniscience, as the speaker, who was not present at most of the events in the story could describe characters' actions and feelings and tell the audience things that he could not have possibly known at that time. "He'd dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling, and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit" (1).
Perspective & Point of View
Montanna Cheng
15 March 2007
Definition(s):
1. The capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance ; a position or from which something is considered or evaluated (Merriam Webster)2. The position or vantage point from which the events of a story seem to be observed and presented to us.
Point of view or perspective guides the reader to the story, as it is the method of narration that determines the position from which the story unfolds.
A piece of literature requires a speaker who is speaking either in the first person, telling things from his or her own perspective, or in the third person, telling things from the perspective of an onlooker.
The perspective used is called the Point of View, and is referred to either as first person or third person. If the speaker knows everything including the actions, motives, and thoughts of all the characters, the speaker is referred to as omniscient (all‑knowing). An omniscient narrator knows everything that needs to be known about the agents and events in the story, and is free to move at will in time and place, The narrator has privileged access to a character's thoughts, feelings, and motives. If the speaker is unable to know what is in any character's mind but his or her own, and confined to what is experienced or thought by a single character, this is called limited omniscience.
Role and Importance of Perspective/POV:
Each character's perspective of events in a story will vary, and each different view will impact a reader's view of meaning differently. The events that occur may be different, as the character may see one thing, but another character may see the same thing differently. The protagonist of the story will also change. As other characters develop and are characterized depending on the perspective or point of view that is used to tell the story, perspective can affect characters' development.Perspective can also enhance the theme of the literature, an example would be The Stranger, where Albert Camus uses the character Meursault, who reflects Camus' philosophical views such as absurdity, alienation and death. By using this character, Meursault's thoughts and views on the world greatly enhances the theme.
Examples:
The Stranger - Albert Camus (Also known as The Outsider)
In this novel, Camus uses first person perspective to tell the story. The audience watches the story and events unfold through Meursault's perspective.Camus examines the theme of "the absurd" * which is recurrent throughout his works through the eyes of the main character, Meursault. The realization that Meursault achieves in accepting the "benign indifference of the world" (117) underscores Camus' existentialistic view. As the story is narrated in first person, the audience is able to access Meursault's thoughts and see things through his eyes. Other characters and settings are defined by Meursault and the way he sees them.Meursault's characterization of an Arab: "He was alone. He was lying on his back, with his hands behind his head, his forehead in the shade of the rock and his whole body in the sun. His boiler suit was steaming in the heat" (58).
Meursault's description of a setting (Marengo's old people's home): "Above the hills which seperate Marengo from the sea, the sky was full of red streaks. And the breeze coming up over the hills had a salty tang to it" (17).
In The Stranger, the emotions and thoughts of Meursault are revealed to the audience as the narrator is Meursault himself.
"All I could feel were the cymbals the sun was clashing against my forehead and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear still leaping up off the knife in front of me" (60)
* The Absurd: expresses a fundamental disharmony, a tragic incompatibility, in our existence. Camus argues that the absurd is the product of a collision or confrontation between our human desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life and the blank, indifferent “silence of the universe.”
Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
" She saw him from the same hammock and in the same position in which I found her prostrated by the last lights of old age when I returned to this forgotten village, trying to put the broken mirror of memory back toether from so many scattered shards" (4-5).
Even though the novel is coming from a first person perspective, the protagonist of the story is not the narrator, but in fact Santiago Nasar. Even though the story is written from a single character's perspective, the person who is narrating does not play a significant role in the story. The narrator in Chronicle pieces memories and recollections of other characters, thus in some way the story is also told from multiple perspectives.
The point of view is also a limited omniscience, as the speaker, who was not present at most of the events in the story could describe characters' actions and feelings and tell the audience things that he could not have possibly known at that time. "He'd dreamed he was going through a grove of timber trees where a gentle drizzle was falling, and for an instant he was happy in his dream, but when he awoke he felt completely spattered with bird shit" (1).
Works Cited: